In the production of dairy products such as cheese, a milk product is separated into whey and curd. The curd is used to produce the cheese and the whey is a by product rich in lactose, minerals, vitamins, and protein. Rather than discarding the whey as waste, many producers will use it to make other useful products. An example of such a product is whey protein concentrate, which is used as an additive in food items to enhance the food's nutritional value.
Whey protein concentrate is typically produced by filtering the whey to form a concentrate and a permeate, both of which are fluid. The concentrate includes water and solid components, including a protein. The concentration of protein in the concentrate is greater than the concentration of protein in the original whey. After filtering is complete, the producer removes substantially all of the water from the concentrate to produce a powdered whey protein concentrate. Alternatively, the producer can sell a concentrate liquid and forgo the step of removing water from the concentrate. The protein concentration is determined by the ratio between the amount of protein in the concentrate and the total amount of solid components in the concentrate.
The standard in the dairy industry is to produce whey protein concentrate having a specification that lists the protein concentration at 34% or 50%. The producers also sell a high protein product that has a specification that lists the protein concentration between 80% and 85%.
Current processing technology has a significant shortcoming because there is not an efficient method of measuring and regulating the production process. For example, test equipment that is used on-site is usually limited to a refractometer, which can only measure the total amount of solids in the sample. Thus, the producer does not have the capacity to measure the ratio between the protein and the other components in the concentrate. Rather, the producer must rely on the accuracy and reliability of the filtering equipment, which may be imprecise itself.
A producer can take samples to a lab to obtain more accurate chemical testing or use more precise equipment. However,,workers must manually take these samples and carry them to a laboratory for testing. Such testing is inefficient and can present logistical difficulties. As a result, a producer typically takes only a few samples each day. A problem arises in this situation because calibration of the system can falter during the long period between testing and thus produce a large amount of whey protein concentrate that has fallen below the protein concentration listed in the product specification.
In order to account for all of these problems and still meet the product specification, the producers typically produce a whey protein concentrate that has a protein concentration higher than the specification. For example, if the producer is processing a whey protein concentrate to meet the specified concentration of 34% protein, it may produce a product having a protein concentration as high as 37%.
Because the producers sell its whey protein concentrate as though it has a concentration of only 34%, it is giving away a significant amount of protein--3 pounds of protein for every 100 pounds of concentrate that is sold. If the concentrate sells for $0.65 a pound and the manufacture produces 55,000 pounds a day, which is a typical price and production capacity for a dairy plant, it is giving away over 1000 pounds of product each day. Giving away this much protein results in lost profits each year that exceed several hundred thousand dollars. This loss is significant.
These shortcomings found in current processes for producing a whey protein concentrate also exist in the production of other types of concentrates in the dairy and food industries. They may also exist in other industries that produce a concentrate of some form.
Therefore, there is a need for a system and method for producing a concentrate that has a concentration that matches the specification. There is also a need for a system and method that will match the concentration specification regardless of how far the filter operates above the specification. There is another need for a system and method for automatically determining the concentration of a component within a concentrate.